I’ve spent uncomfortably long trying to figure out what “figma balls” means, or what the obvious answer is when I eventually ask “what’s figma”.

In this case they are clarifying that it isn’t just a handheld device OS, it is a full desktop OS.

Garuda is great. I tried Bazzite on my nvidia based laptop and had problems getting it to work well (to be fair to Bazzite, this was well over a year ago when Bazzite was very new on the scene - I have no idea if i’d have the same problems today). Replaced it with Garuda (which I had been running on my desktop) and it literally “just worked”. And, frankly, I’m a linux idiot. I basically just read the messages that pop up occasionally and do my best to do things like they say (for example, I try to remember to run updates before the system has to tell me “hey, it’s been a bit. Would be best if you would update me soon”).

Speaking of being an idiot… I don’t even know if I HAVE to download the “dragonized” version to get all the gaming bells and whistles just as easily, or if I can use their KDE plasma version that doesn’t have all the theming and still get the “gaming” tweaks? Since my system works, I don’t want to install a new version just to find out, but I feel like I could convince other people to try it more if they got the same functional experience without all the purple glowing stuff out of the box.

Best suggestion I have is a bit involved. This is assuming the laptop uses an nvme storage drive, if not, replace “external nvme enclosure” with “external sata enclosure”. Pull the windows drive out entirely, install a new drive. Install linux of choice on the new drive. Flip a coin, have a long conversation about expectations, or otherwise decide which to leave in the laptop before putting it back together. Tell BIOS to boot USB first always, then internal drive. If the external is not plugged in at boot, you boot whatever you left inside (windows or linux). If you plug in the enclosure, you boot the other. I don’t know how windows will react when ran entirely from an external over usb (highly recommend a good enclosure that has good speeds and connects to usb c even better), but linux doesn’t even seem to care.

My preference would be leave linux physically in the laptop, and keep the windows drive in the enclosure somewhere nearby for emergency use only. I’d bet you find that you go a long time without needing the windows drive (if ever), but if it is “too easy” to just boot to windows instead, most people will tend that way.

SSD died that had windows 10 on it. During the re-installation process I got fed up with onedrive and skype popping up every reboot despite being told not to start with windows multiple times. Attempt to disable, the next round of windows update brings them back. I didn’t even have the absolute basics up and running before I lost all patience for it. Downloaded several distros, setup like 10 different USB sticks to boot them all. Cycled through them for a bit poking around and testing out. Landed on Garuda Linux kinda by chance, but it has been great. It was so refreshing to have a computer feel like it’s mine again.

Gotcha, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining it!

FuriLabs was looking promising, but the new version of the phone is a downgrade in a lot of categories, and the old phone is not available anymore. Disappointing at the moment, hopefully more hardware options in future from them.

I feel like every time Halium comes up it comes with qualifying statements (like “I don’t love Halium”). I don’t really know enough about it to know why that is. What are the problems with Halium that people don’t like? Is it what it does (or how it does it) that is the problem, or something else about the project?

That is very interesting indeed, thank you for bringing it up!

What I really want to at this point is a pager, a cellular Wi-Fi access point, and an 8" tablet that can run Linux and sip power so I can just pretend I don’t have a device.

This is basically what I was thinking. Where can I find a fully functioning 8" Linux Tablet? I feel like the rest of it is easy peasy.

Edit: In my head, I am imagining a steam deck but with the side controller bits snapped off. Someone pls make this. lol

I would do everything you can to avoid a second-hand (or otherwise used) printer as your first go - you have no idea what’s been done to it.

I started on an FLSUN Q5 and it was a great machine to learn on, but a little small build area. I don’t think they sell it anymore though, and their “entry level” printer is now the SR, which I think is around (or more than) double what the Q5 used to go for.

Not knowing what budget you are looking at makes it hard to make recommendations. Look for something with automatic bed levelling at a minimum. If your budget only allows the Ender 3 price point, keep an eye on Micro Center if you have them in your area, as they regularly have sales on them. I haven’t been paying attention lately, but they used to go for $99.99 every few months.

I got to the “draw a perfect circle”… 94% is wild.

This is strictly my personal experience and is not meant to negate someone else’s experience.

I disagree, as a middle user myself, I’ve had much less problems since the switch to Linux. I don’t own a VR setup, so can’t speak to that, but I have used basically everything else you’ve mentioned since switching without issues. Older software seems to work better on Linux than windows 11 in my experience. The rare stumble I’ve had was easily remedied by searching forums and wikis.

Most windows problems I’ve had to search for solutions in the last several years led to either blind registry changes, following some useless wizard that rarely fixes the problem, or a nothing-burger circle where the OP ended up either giving up entirely or re-installing windows to avoid the problem. I’ve very much had better luck actually fixing a problem in Linux than just avoiding it.

Not so far. The initial calibration was a bit of work to get right, but their discord was a lot of help. I went there with a bed mesh issue and found someone had already asked about the exact same issue and their solution fixed my problem perfectly. I also had to do a fair bit of testing to get a PLA profile that worked well (the already built ones I could find were for ABS and PETG).

RatRig. The build process was tedious, but it was easy enough I figured it out… I hadn’t built a printer before, not like that, and I’d say it took about a week or two of spare time?

Did they hold a moment of silence when that minnesota dem senator was killed? Honestly curious if there is even precedent for them doing it even for a politician.

I’m sure they don’t hold a moment of silence every time someone in the US dies of gun violence, since they would never be able to speak…

I use mouse primarily. Though on a laptop, if I don’t have a mouse, I would much prefer a little red clit-mouse and as much keyboard shortcuts as I can over having to use a touch pad…

True, GOS team has not quit, but we don’t know yet what the consequences will be. They have said hardware support going forward will take more time than it used to. We do not know how much time that will take. We don’t know what functionality might be lost in the process.

Just because GOS didn’t throw in the towel doesn’t mean that they won, or that the fight is even over. No one knows what roadblocks Google’s next steps will cause either.

Google has all but officially declared that they look at custom roms and anything other than Google’s official android to be akin to piracy and hacking (something similar to a mod-chip from the old playstation days). They are actively trying to start an arms race between their prevention tactics and the FOSS community’s way around those tactics (or win it before it starts), just like with adblockers.

I agree with your sentiment entirely. Hell, I do really like F360, but it isn’t enough for me to go back to using windows.

In most situations, especially ones typical users are going to run into, I’ve found the alternatives to be much easier for me to learn and use. I fucking love Krita for the image editing I need an image editor for. From my experience, 95%+ people would have a better time if they weren’t blindly sticking to proprietary software they think they “need”.

Graphene team already did a blog post about the lock down of AOSP and how it will significantly hinder their ability to support future hardware, since drivers was a huge part of what was moved closed source by google. Those open source drivers was the big driving force for why Graphene basically only supported Pixel phones. They made it significantly harder for people using AOSP derivatives currently to upgrade to a new phone when it is time.